The Pros and the Cons of Living in the UK

There are some really great things about living here as well as some not so great or frustrating things. So here are some of the pros and cons that we have personally experienced.

Pros:

Public transportation - most cities or good size towns have buses that run their routes. Corby is especially cheap - at 1.50 pounds for an entire day of transportation. Buses also run between cities and to train stations. We lived for almost four months without a car, taking buses everywhere we needed to go when we weren't walking.

Cheap internet: 7.50 pounds a month for broadband is what we pay. There are more expensive companies of course.

Flowering stuff everywhere: right now, in December, I have a plant in my garden with yellow flowers as well as one with white flowers. During other seasons, there is stuff everywhere you walk - hedgerows with blackberries, flowers, other berries - lots of color everywhere.

Power shower and instant hot water: even in relatively cheaply built homes like ours (typical housing development type construction), they now put in these power showers which have fantastic pressure - I actually have to use it at about half the power. And because they have these boiler units in the kitchen that produce instant hot water, you basically never run out if you keep your hot water on continuously (which we pretty much do, being the wasteful Americans that we are). Most Brits have their hot water come on for a certain period of time, fill the tank, and that is all they use for the entire day, being the very energy efficient people that they are.

Grocery delivery: need I say more! I do. I have a veg box delivered once a week from a local organic farm. This veg "scheme" offers fresh fruits and vegetables, grown organically, dairy products, and even meats. I usually get a different box each week for the variety and some whole milk, also from a local farm. Then I also have groceries delivered from a place like ASDA (Walmart) or Tesco. This is so great - click the mouse a little, and then all my bags of heavy groceries are delivered right to my door.

Countless old castles and such to visit: the historical sights one can see here are fantastic. All over the country are various castles or "houses" (really mansions or palaces) that are anywhere up to a thousand years old, some maybe more. Many of these have opened up to visitors in order to raise much needed money to upkeep their monster estates and pay the unbearable taxes. Even the Queen has opened up Buckingham Palace for this reason - she is using funds to refurbish Winsdor Castle after it was damaged in a fire. You can view the various ones that we have visited in previous blogs. Then , throw in the occasional Stonehenge (over 5000 years old) and Roman ruins in various places (like the baths in Bath) that are in spots all over the country, as well as all the treasures they have ammassed in London museums, and basically you could never run out of incredible things to investigate.

No mosquitos? At least I think so. I did not see a single one when we arrived in the summer, and none of the windows over here have screens, and people just leave windows and doors wide open in good summer weather, so I am going to assume there are no mosquitos.

No poles, wires, lights, and other view-obstructing paraphenalia: There are very few traffic lights - just at certain busy pedestrian crossings and busy city round-a-bouts. There is absolutely nothing overhead. All power lines and cables are burried underground. This makes things look significantly prettier.

So now on to the cons:

Financially starting over: When we arrived, we were able to use our passports to start a bank account here. It seemed as though they needed proof there would be income to start it. We had to wait for debit cards - these have a chip in them, unlike any of our American cards. There are stores that only take cards with a chip and pin. And I could not buy my cell phone (with monthly plan) until I had a card with a chip. The wait was frustrating. We also found out that we could not get any financing. So when we purchased our washer and dryer, we couldn't get store financing but had to pay for the whole thing. We couldn't apply for a credit card, so we had to continue to use US credit cards which made us very dependent on the exchange rate for the true purchase of our stuff. It's hard to start completely over like you are newly out on your own when you have been financially capable for years. The same held true for our recent car purchase - we are not eligible for car financing until we have been in the UK for 3 years! We should be able to get a credit card though at some point in the next few months.

Lack of closets: when they build houses, they do not automatically have closets in the bedrooms. If you pay extra money, you can get built in "wardrobes" but many rentals here have no built in wardrobes either. So where do you hang your clothes? Well, you have to buy wardrobes! In addition, there are no closets throughout the house - like in the bathrooms, in the hallways, etc. So you have to buy storage solution type of stuff for all your things. This is a real pain and even having wardrobes, containers, other storage furniture containing all your stuff is still a lot more cluttery than having nice closets in all your rooms.

Taxes: 33% typical tax rate - yikes! Bill was actually having about 29% or so out of his paycheck. He then opted out of pension, reducing that to about 25%. (you have to work for 15 years in the UK to receive pension benefits) We have now applied for working tax credit and child tax credit which will help to further lower the percentage. There is a process we have to go through before we get this, and we are still waiting on all that. In slight defense of this taxation, we are paying about 140 pounds a month in taxes for National Health Service. That is incredibly cheap for a whole family. But, it is a very socialistic system and therefore heavily taxed. Of course, if the US keeps pace, they will have similar taxation difficulties before long!

The roads: when going somewhere for the first time, we can almost guarantee that we will get mixed up at some round-a-bout along the way. They are not the easiest things to negotiate when you are clueless as to where you are going. Once you know your way around, they are easy. Road signs can sometimes be not-so-helpful, although they are not always bad. I do prefer having street signs on posts at the corner of every intersection. They only put road signs at the beginning of a road, so once you are on it, there are no signs along the way to confirm. Or if you turn onto the road from a street somewhere in the middle, there is of course no sign so you may not know what road you are on. This is the reason why I prefer to have every intersection marked with BOTH streets.

Nickeling and diming: you pay to park in Town Centre, you pay to park at the mall, and a million other little charges like that.

And the jury's out on:

the educational system

the National Health Service - quality of care etc

These are just some of the things that we have positively and negatively experienced here in the UK. Maybe a while from now, I'll revisit the pros and cons. By then, some of the cons may have resolved themselves as we become more established. In the meantime, the pros are many because basically how can I not be thankful in everything when God is in control and is so good and merciful to us?

Getting a Car and Having Thanksgiving

So a couple weeks into November, as I was biking Philip around in the ever-increasing cold, I realized that I did not think we could go any longer without a car. So into the world of foreign vehicles we delved. As Bill started looking at various vehicles, he would lament that he just didn't know enough about the models over here to know what would be best. We wanted to keep it under a thousand pounds, which in itself was very limiting. He did go around to many dealerships, toying with the idea of spending more than that and looking at quite a lot of different types. After a Saturday of visiting many nearby dealerships, he came home and was checking out ebay some more. And suddenly he came across our car - for a mere 700 pounds! No one had bid on it and the auction was ending soon. We couldn't believe it was so cheap and thought that there must be a catch, but after consulting with Mr. Kruppa, decided to go for it. The next day, we drove over and were very pleasantly surprised by the good condition of our vehicle - a 1991 Mercedes station wagon. The interior is in good condition and it has been running just fine with most things in the vehicle working! And just in time too, as I have no desire to be biking around in this cold weather!!

It has 104,000 miles and two seats that face backwards in the back to seat up to 7 passengers. It has been great having it! Fortunately it came with four months of road tax and MOT (like registration and inspection) so we don't have to worry about that right away.

Thanksgiving:

We were asked by a few people if we would still observe Thanksgiving being here in the UK, and my answer is yes definitely! There are some American holidays that we probably won't go to much trouble for - like Labor Day and stuff like that, but there are some that I feel very attached to. July 4th would be one of those, although we would certainly keep that celebration low key. Thanksgiving is another holiday that I feel attached to; I have many many memories of this holiday shared with my family and others. But not only that, it is a particularly great time to observe and give extra thanks to God for His blessings. I like having each family member at the dinner table stating some of the things they are thankful for. Turkey, stuffing, and gravy is also on my top two list of favorite holiday meals (with tenderloin and yorkshire pudding being the other).

Because Bill had to work and the kids had school, we decided to do a mini Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, and we invited the Picketts over for Saturday for a bigger Thanksgiving feast. We ended up having our Pastor and his wife Rosalind over on Thursday night to help us eat our little turkey. This also gave me much needed practice cooking the stuff in unfamiliar territory. All in all, our two Thanksgiving dinners were awesome, and the monster turkey I cooked on Saturday gave us two more days of pure turkey eating!

One thing that is completely unavailable here in the UK is canned pumpkin. So no pumpkin pie! But Ruth Ann Pickett came to our rescue and made one for Saturday with her last can of stashed pumpkin from the US. I also could not find corn syrup, a staple for chocolate pecan pie. I pretty much gave up on dessert, but I was able to find all the stuff I wanted for the meal.

Some of the things that I am thankful for: a great husband, healthy kids, the Lord's provision and guidance in every step of our lives, our Pastor and the church we have found over here, and all the comforts and freedoms that I currently have.

Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral

Friday morning, we made our way down to the Dining Room of Wentworth House for a breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, toast, fruit, yoghurt, and in Bill's and my case, many cups of coffee. I was really dragging, but after four cups of very good coffee felt somewhat better. Does this make me a coffee drinker? Well, not really - as I only seem to drink it when I'm out somewhere..... : )

It was a fairly quick job to pack up our overnight stuff and head out to Stonehenge, using my handy iphone for our GPS. The drive was mainly rural roads - winding and curving, and Abby hung in there for a while, but just short of reaching Stonehenge we had to come to a screeching halt at the side of the road for her to puke. (carsick, not a bug this time)

You can just drive to the area and park in the parking lot and walk along the fenced road to see Stonehenge, but we decided to go ahead and pay to walk around inside the fenced area for at least this first time visiting it. I thought it was worth the money to do once - you get to walk around the entire circle area and get pictures from every angle and the audio tour etc. This time, Bill got to have his arm yanked out of socket by Philip, and Abby and I meandered around taking pictures to our heart's content.

Stonehenge seems to have quite a bit intact, and the information states that the sun rising on the stones at different times of year marks the seasons and so forth. This stone circle is over 5000 years old, and dug all around it is a trench and then earth is mounded behind the trench. It is quite a sight. We found it very amazing and spent about an hour or so there walking around the area.

Then it was back to the car to take a short detour south to Salisbury to see the cathedral there. Since it was lunch time, we stopped for some food first. We managed to find our way through the somewhat winding and not-at-all picturesque streets of Salisbury and finally to the parking area for the Cathedral. This particular cathedral has the tallest spire in all of England and is Gothic in architecture.

In the center of the back area of the cathedral is a baptism pool that is remarkable - the water is moving and flowing through it, but without a single ripple of movement so that is looks like black glass. Stained glass throughout is original to the building - built in the 1200s. The ceilings are painted with different patterns and colors throughout, and of course there are the requisite tombs of all sorts of people. The choir was rehearsing while we were there and they sounded great in that high church way. The garden cloister area was very pretty with the afternoon sun coming through and all the flowering bushes and so forth. Our visit into the Chapter House revealed detailed Medieval friezes carved around the whole room depicting all the stories from Genesis - most of them we were able to identify. We also got a good look at the original Magna Carta document, which is being displayed there under the watchful eye of an elderly lady!

We spent some time outside the West Front of the cathedral, letting the kids run around in the Cathedral Close (a huge lawn park area) and then decided to wind our way up to Avebury - another 5000 year old stone circle. This particular one is not like Stonehenge - it is very large and used to have around 400 stones around it, and the little village of Avebury sits within the circle. High Street runs right through the circle, and parts of the circle are now sheep pasture. This circle is also surrounded by a ditch backed with a very high embankment of chalk - now covered with earth. It was getting towards dusk while we were there, so our visit was fairly quick.

So when I went to do directions home on the iphone - no service!! Big problem with using the phone as a GPS out in the middle of nowhere. So we followed a route northward, hoping it would be a good general direction. As we hopefully wound our way north, I searched the guide book for a decent map, to no avail. The other difficulty with all this was that my iphone by now was getting low on battery power, so I had to be judicious in its use. Fortunately, after just a few miles, we came upon a good sized town and there had some food and got our route home loaded on the phone.

So that concluded our sight-seeing to Wessex county, a place that I think Caleb and I battled over quite a bit in Britannia, with me finally having to give in due to lack of reinforcements. After these trips I am almost always left with the feeling of "if only we had time to do such and such" or "I'd really like to go back and see this" - there is never enough time to really see everything of interest, and we are mainly hitting the big highlights as best as we can. I found Bath to be very beautiful and would love to spend more time there.

Bath

So this morning (Thursday), after packing some overnight stuff, snacks, activities, etc, we hit the road to Bath. For once, we didn't miss the A14 roundabout thingy, and thus had no unplanned detours. We hurtled down the M5, only stopping for a brief toilet break (and a Costa Coffee I must admit). We arrived in Bath around noon and looked carefully for a place to park. We found a short stay park at the Waitrose (grocery store) and zipped in there. Then it was off to see the sights.

Our first order of business was of course lunch, and we chose a small cafe after wandering a few streets. Thus fortified, we then began our walk up to see the famous curved Georgian house facades at the Circus and Royal Crescent. The streets of Bath are certainly beautiful and unique and the walk was an enjoyable one, save for Philip constantly tugging on our arms to get away. At the Royal Crescent, we went in the Georgian House Museum (?), a house that is fully outfitted to the period. This is at the top of the hill in Bath and overlooks Victoria Park and other parts of Bath.

(the Royal Crescent - elegant homes for the wealthy back in the 1700s)

We then meandered through streets lined with shops - which we wold have loved to go in, but I knew we didn't have time for that and for the Roman Baths and other city center sights. So, with a longing look at Space NK, L'Occitane, Monsoon, and in Bill's case, Orvis, off we went to get a quick snack and drink from the car. We got a new ticket good for another four hours and then headed to city center.

The next two hours were spent going through the Roman Bath Museum - very cool! They have excavated this site - a temple, and very extensive baths, several of which they keep filled. The water naturally runs into the baths at 115 degrees F - and I think 13 liters a minute. We had a plan - and it was a very good one, but did have some flaws. We thought we would get Philip to just "happen" to jump in the spa (bath), and OF COURSE we would have to jump in to rescue him. And if we just "happened" to have our swimsuits on at the time, well, what a coincidence!!!! The main flaw here was the weather - after all, it is Autumn and the outside temp might be in the high 50s or so. So how were we going to go about in our swimsuits without freezing? With no answer to this dilemma, we abandoned the plan, at least for now. I do have to say though, that without ANY coaching on our part whatsoever, Philip did come very close to getting in the spa. I feel very proud of my restraint in preventing him from getting in.

Bath does have a Thermae Spa that uses the natural springs, but they don't allow under 18s and it costs 55 pounds. Strike out there! Anyway, the excavation of the Roman site is really neat - with chunks from the temple - original stone floors - of course the original baths - some partial mosaics - and many other things recovered.

We emerged from the museum, after a quick glance into the Pump Room which was closed because of the time, and headed over to see the Bath Abbey. This was a nice break for me. See they have all these things called pews, and I sat right down to rest my now weary feet. I no longer had Philip yanking on my arm to get away - another break for my weary arm! There was hardly anyone in there, and the people were very laid back, so I let Philip roam around. Well, after getting the obligatory pictures of the interior (finally, a place that actually ALLOWED pictures inside), we went in search of some dinner. By this time, it was raining a bit, so in the interest of not getting too wet walking around to peruse the restaurant choices, we zipped right in to Pizza Hut. Then it was a short walk back to the car park and a short drive here to our hotel.

(inside Bath Abbey - beautiful fan ceilings)

Wentworth House is a very large old house - now obviously converted into a hotel of sorts. We have a very reasonable family room here for the night and are looking forward to a hearty breakfast in the morning.

Burghley House

House - they call this a house?

So today, Bill and I dropped all children off at school and then hopped in the rental car to go visit Burghley House. It's located in Stamford which is very nearby - takes about 35 minutes to go the 20 miles or so. This house was built by William Cecil who was Elizabeth I's State Advisor. Since then it has been the Cecil's family home and still is. They have opened it to the public (as many castles and so forth are) to pay for the exorbitant taxes and repairs/upkeep of the place. Recently, it was used as the set for the new Pride and Prejudice movie.

Inside, you tour through a wing of guestrooms - the beds look like this. Every room is chock full of art. Aparantly a few different Earls and Marquesses throughout their history took it upon themselves to tour Europe collecting vast amounts of valuable art and other furniture and various treasures. Some were sold off years ago to pay for upkeep of the place before they got the brilliant idea to open it to the public. But there remain enough to occupy you for hours touring through the house.

You can't completely tell in this picture, but this house has a lot of painting on the walls and ceilings. Room after room is painted - ceilings and walls with various legends. If a room is not painted on the ceilings and walls, then pictures hang on every wall.

Every piece of furniture seems to be a treasure in itself. There are all sorts of beautifully veneered woods like this table, gold overlay, and the fireplaces are made of solid silver. Some rooms have beautiful tapestry on the walls instead of paintings. The Great Hall houses the library and has over 3000 volumes of pricelessly old stuff.

After going through the rooms open to the public, we went out to the Garden of Surprises. This would be a great fun place for kids in the summer - it's like a water garden with all sorts of water features that you could get completely soaked in if you so desired. It also contains some quirky things like a maze of mirrors, and modern sculptures. Exiting out of that we took a short walk through the Sculptured Garden. This is a tree/schrub/bushes type garden with various meandering paths and a lake. Scattered throughout are all sorts of modern art sculptures.

We were pretty hungry by this time, so keeping a close eye on the time, we went back into the House grounds to the Orangery Restaurant for a late lunch. We ordered one beef and wild game casserole and one steak and kidney pie to share between us - just to keep with the authentic British experience, and they were both very tasty. Then it was a short trip home to pick up the kids from school and get ready for church.

Moving in to the Rental House

The much awaited day had arrived! Friday night (Sep 26th) we packed as much of our clothing as we could in preparation for our Saturday move. Saturday, we caught an early bus up to High Street where the rental agent's offices were located, and we signed all the necessary papers and handed in a sizable chunk of money in exchange for the keys to our new rental. We then took the bus back to the bungalow and had some lunch. Bill was able to borrow one of the school's maintainance vehicles to move our stuff over to the house, so he went and got that. What we had to move at this point was all our clothes in luggage that we had brought, plus the things we had bought in preparation to go into a house. This included the Yamaha Clavinova (ebay purchase), some bookcases, a TV, and some other household items purchased from a missionary who was returning to the USA. We spent the next few hours taking trips back and forth to bring the stuff. Fortunately, our new home was just up the road - about half a mile or so.

(picture from our entrance door facing into lounge and back garden)

(kitchen - facing front to road)

After a few weary hours of moving stuff and simultaneously trying to clean the bungalow we were leaving, we made a quick run to the grocery store for supplies and a ready-made meal, then headed home. We tried to unpack as much clothing as possible - onto the floors - so we could at least access it the next day, and then got our beds ready. The church members were kind enough to give us zed beds (like a cot) and bedding for the children, some pots and knives for basic cooking, some chairs from the church for sitting on, and things like that to get us through the week until Friday when our container of stuff was being delivered. Bill's Dep Head also dropped by a small round table on Sunday that he didn't want anymore. Bill and I used a horrible air mattress that we had purchased cheaply for the week. So all in all, we ended up having enough stuff to get us through the week.

(view of lounge into back garden)

(our luggage unloaded into the master bedroom)

The house we have chosen to live in here in Corby is a town house - attached to four others. There is a courtyard area with garages for each house - we have our own garage that I am not sure would actually fit a car but is still very useful for storing stuff. I don't think I have actually seen anyone else try to fit their car in the garage either - they all park outside! The house is narrow and tall - about 16 feet in width, but going up three stories. We chose this house for several reasons - the bedrooms are very big by UK standards and were much bigger than in any other home I viewed. The faucets in the kids' bathroom and our bathroom are both mixed - most sinks here have separate taps, which I personally dislike, as you either freeze or burn your hands when washing. The kitchen came with a fridge and dishwasher already - here in the UK, rentals consider appliances as furniture and you usually have to provide them yourself! (I did have to purchase a washer and dryer) The back "garden", although narrow, is very beautifully shrubbed in a rock garden - very low maintainance - (this is a good thing) - and has a patio area. The other big draw for this particular house was the fourth bedroom - a very large room that could also be used as a family room; we are using this as a playroom for the kids and that is reason enough to have this house! So although we have had to cut back on space somewhat, I think we have plenty enough in this town house to be quite comfortable.

(view of sheep farm and pasture across the street from front of house; they are currently putting in a large lawn area right across the street just before the sheep pasture)

(the back garden)

Friday, Oct 3rd arrived, and soon the shipping container and the movers arrived. It was a long day of getting everything into the house and put in the correct room. Once the movers had left, I began some organizing efforts that Bill helped with when he got home from school. Later in the evening, Pastor Pavitt, Pastor Tooley, and two Crown College kids came over to move a few things up to the third floor - which was very kind of them. We ended up finding all the bedding for our beds and got them all set up just in time to wearily fall into them that night. There were three small problems we encountered during all of this. The first was that my triple dresser just absolutely would not fit up the stairs. The movers tried, and then we tried later, but there was no way. After being initially depressed : ) I decided to roll with the punches, and my dresser is now our hifi center for the TV. Second, Bill's chest of drawers (matching my dresser) fit up the first set of stairs, but it would not go up the second to our bedroom (master suite is on top floor). So he ended up putting it in Abby's room. Third, we put on our much loved heated mattress pad, and then read that the Watts are 360! Yikes! We had not had time to check this before we left so we had no idea how much we would need to convert. I had some 100W converters, but obviously they weren't going to do the job. Anyway, all that aside, we were overjoyed to get back into our very own talalay latex foam bed and all our soft and wonderful bedding! Every single night, I am thankful for that bed!!!!!

Saturday, Bill rented a minivan and went to pick up our two other ebay purchases. First was a dining room table with six chairs that we purchased for 50 pounds. We really got a fantastic deal with this set - the table is very large oval and additionally has a large leaf to extend it out. It is solid mahogony and is beautiful. The chairs are sage green and also solid mahogony and very attractive and comfortable. I love the set! The other purchase was a table with four chairs and a matching sideboard. The table is square, but has extensions that you pull out from under the table top and they slide into place on either side. They can then just as easily be slid back underneath. The sideboard is high, with nice storage compartments. We purchased this set for the playroom - for a game table and storage for all the games for 100 pounds. This set is a 1930's style and is also solid hardwood and in great shape. Yay ebay!

The following week was spent organizing stuff into places in the house and purchasing all the little things that you need to start off a household. We worked pretty hard though and had it mostly done going into the weekend. Then Bill was off from school (for a two week holiday) and helped me finish up the rest on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

We still have a few things that we need to purchase, but we ought to be able to get all that done early this week. There are of course some mundane things to be done in setting up household accounts etc, but we anticipate that this week we will have time for some sight-seeing by Wednesday or Thursday. Then I will hopefully have something much more interesting to blog about.

More About Church

So I've been hearing that people want to know about church, so I will attempt to fill you in.

We found Lifegate Baptist Church pastored by Colin Pavitt our first Sunday here. We had intended on going around to a few neighboring churches - some we had seen on the internet, but basically really liked this pastor and church in Corby, so have not done that. Other churches are in neighboring cities - Kettering, Peterborough, etc, but without a vehicle, it is fairly prohibitive for us to get there.

Things are different here - it is more difficult to travel around - even on more major routes, so it's not the same as a 35 minute trip 25 miles on the relatively easy roads of NH. 25 miles is more of an undertaking here.

Anyway, we have, through the last few weeks, asked many questions of the Pastor and his wife about them and their work here. Bill also had the opportunity to ask questions after our dinner with them last Sunday.

The conclusion of all that is that their stands reflect our position very closely, as do their practices.

The church is very small and has only a few faithful members currently - John, Rosemary, and Meghan, senior age and very faithful. Another 6 to 8 people we have seen at various services - whether just a Sunday morning, or just midweek etc. On Sunday mornings, children from age 17 to 6 come in from some neighborhood families. Rosalind, the pastor's wife, runs a Sunday School (what we call Bible Club) time for them in the back room. There are about 8 to 10 of these children that come in. This morning I started helping with them by sitting with two adolescent girls in the service to help them keep quiet. : ) Most of these kids come from difficult family circumstances and the church service is perhaps a time of refuge for them.

Rosalind plays for the hymns and will do a solo on Sunday nights a capella, and that is the sum total of their music program so far. On Wednesday night, Jack, another member, did a song with the pastor and his wife from the Kettering church.

Pastor Pavitt is considered a missionary pastor, in that he is not supported by this church here, but is helped by a couple other churches. He goes completely by faith in his income and support and has done this for years. He has pastored here for 14 years I think. He goes around to other churches and helps pastors do evangelism - door to door or street preaching or tract distribution. He also runs a British Pastor Preacher Training Unit - training other men to become pastors. He has in recent years done some studying at Emmanuel's seminary in Ireland and knows of Dr. Strausse. He has a schedule of each week day - the places that he goes out to do evangelism and witnessing and other area pastors will join him in this. His preaching is strong and he says things very reminiscent of dad like "we need to read fewer of the books about the Bible and just read the Bible" things along those lines. He was saved in the Brethren Church and eventually became Baptist.

He has a compassionate heart to reach the lost and strong preaching, the combination of which has drawn us to feel like we should serve in this church and be what help we can.

So we intend to join this church soon and although we miss our Calvary Churches in NH, it seems like there is a need here. I guess you have to be here to understand what things are like, but there are tough struggles here, and our churches in NH, despite having gone through huge upheaval and trial in recent years should know that they are indeed VERY blessed. Calvary has a great pastor, nice buildings, faithful members, piano players, singers, deacons, other teachers, cleaners, nursery workers, generous givers, and so on. These things aren't everywhere and should never be taken for granted. If nothing else, getting outside of our little box is a reminder of all the bounty we take for granted in the US.

Our First Driving Episode

So last weekend, we rented a cargo van in order to go and get the piano that I bought off of ebay. I bought this Clavinova from someone in North Wales - pick up only, no delivery. Since the van had no windows, we quickly discarded the idea of combining the trip with some North Wales sight-seeing and decided instead to leave me and the kids at Damian's house while Bill and Damian went the rest of the way to get the piano.

So we started off with me driving - so that I could get some practice in. I didn't do too badly at all with the stick shift on the left and was reasonably smooth starting out. The whole being on the right of the vehicle on the left of the road actually wasn't that bad. The things that threw me at first were the round-abouts. I had to decide which lane to be in, hoping I was getting the correct one for where I was supposed to exit, and then figure out where I supposed to exit on the round-about. My road sign vision is not the greatest, so I was depending on Bill to tell me where to go at first. Also, the whole not having a clue where I was going thing made it a little harder. We finally made it onto the M1, then the M6 - major motorways. Of course, by then it was pouring rain, to make things a little more difficult.

Not long after getting on the motorway, the kids had to use the toilet, so we pulled off into a Service Plaza - although that's not what it's called here - can't remember what it is - where we resisted the urge to buy Starbucks. I'm not sure why we felt the need to resist, maybe we were trying to be frugal. Then it was on our way again.

Arriving at Damian's, we settled in after introductions. Ruth Ann and I had tea and chatted while the kids attacked the toys with great enthusiasm. Damian and Bill took off for Mold, Flintshire. Dakota is Damian's 3-year old son, so he and Philip had a great old time beating up on each other and fighting over toys (just kidding - they actually played nice some of the time). Damian Jr helped Joseph with the Wii some of the time and we did get a brief respite from the noise when Dakota and Philip napped. The guys meanwhile were off partying, in the guise of picking up the piano, but it took them so long to do that, that we know they were up to something....

When they returned, we scarfed down huge quantities of fish and chips, then the adults geared up for a game of Carcossone, the Castle. Damian won this game, but at the advantage of actually knowing how to play and perhaps cheating!!!!!!!!!!! OK, not true, but I can still say it. We are awaiting a rematch at our next get-together. See, gamers everywhere you go in the world!! Then it was back home to unload the piano.

Sunday, we were able to drive to church, and went over to Pastor Pavitt's house for dinner after morning church. We were able to get to know them and vice versa, and Bill had an opportunity to go through our pastor's questionnaire with him to get a good view on his stands.

Monday, Philip and I decided to take the van driving for some more practice, since we had it until that evening. We went randomly driving around our area, practicing reading the signs through the round-abouts, which I got pretty good at after a while. I have figured out that it is easiest just to read the signs on the round-abouts instead of following directions. (GPS or map) We toured through Kettering and then some random quaint thatched villages and back roads and then returned home for school pick-up time. I even got so good that I snapped some photos on my iphone of quaint thatched cottages and tree-canopied roads while driving, but I haven't gotten around to down-loading these onto the computer yet.

Rockingham Castle

Bank Holiday - August 25th

We woke up the morning of the holiday and decided to go see Rockingham Castle that day. Fortunately on holidays, the Corbystar 10 runs a route, and we could see that the route took us pretty near to the castle so we could be within reasonable walking distance.

Rockingham Castle is just a few miles away from where we live, and was built on the instruction of William the Conqueror following his 1066 invasion.

The Great Hall was put up, as well as many other parts, and for the next 450 years various kings made improvements and changes. In 1485, Henry VII abandoned the castle, and the Watson family subsequently bought this property. The Watson family has owned and lived in the castle for the last 450 years - currently it is James Watson, his wife and three children.

The castle is surrounded by 18 acres of gardens, all of which you can tour through - we did part of them throughout the day.

On Bank Holiday, the local Vikings of Middle England group was there doing a show and battle and all that. The best thing I can equate this to is something like living history towns - Jamestown, etc, where they are dressed in period costumes, or perhaps a Renaissance fair. They had a show put on in three parts throughout the afternoon - based from events 952 - 954 - battles between Saxons and Vikings I believe. The main jist is the Wessex King of Eadred, Dagmaer had expelled the Norse King Olaf and made himself king of York, but some would seek to restore Erik the Viking to the throne. The last scene they put on was a battle where Erik 'Bloodaxe' is killed off.

In between scenes, they had tents set up around the lawn displaying their weapons, clothing, trades, and crafts.

They also brought out Icelandic horses to show their special training. It is a particular gait that they teach them and was very neat to see - the person riding the horse is hardly bounced at all, so it looks very regal, I guess, is a good way of describing it.

The gardens were gorgeous - especially my favorite - the rose garden. Pictured here is the extremely cool elephant hedge. This hedge has been in existance for 400 years. This picture is from the battlement, so is not close up enough, but the hedge does very much look like elephants pushing up against eachother.

We toured the castle, the gardens, and watched several of the Viking shows before heading back to the bus stop. Philip was 'to tired to walk' at this point, so I was carrying him. Once off the bus, Bill took Joseph and Abby to get pizza from Pizza Hut, while Philip and I strolled down Butland Road picking all available blackberries before reaching home.

There are four other major castles in this Midlands area. Grimsthorpe Castle, Belton House, Belvoir Castle, and Burghley House are all open to the public during parts of the year. Admission to Rockingham was £28 for the family, and we now have a discount voucher for a visit to another castle, but still, we will have to space these out over the course of time.

Bill Starts Work and Other Realities of Life

(a page from our A-Z Map)

Just to show you around Corby a bit:

Brooke Weston CTC is located down at the bottom of the pic and our bungalow is the little pink speck there at the bottom of Coombe Road. You can trace our walk up to Morrison's supermarket.

Then up where the roads intersect is Town Centre - the Swimming Pool is there to the left of all the store and so forth.

Here's the inside of our Corby bus as we travel around Corby. This costs £1.50 for a day.

So it was off to school for Bill on the 18th. This left me to find activities to keep three kiddies occupied.

So, one day we walked up to a playground in Oakley Vale where the kids played for a long time. Wednesday, I received my first delivery of groceries to my door - ordered online from ASDA Walmart. Then in the afternoon, a very nice lady who Bill met in the grocery store took me and the kids to Town Centre, where we had coffee and cakes; then she drove me on a tour around our area. This was a really nice thing to see what was around the town of Corby. Thursday, we took an outing to Town Centre to do some shopping and go to the library. This was also my first stop in Costa Coffee for a triple chocolate muffin and a mocha. Friday, it was another outing to Town Centre for some things for the kids this time, and then on to the Swimming Pool for an afternoon swim.

Meanwhile, Bill went to lots of meetings and learned all about how England does assessment and so forth, got his schedule, and met lots of fellow staffers.

Saturday, it was a morning run to Town Centre for a few more errands, and then back home to do some random household things.

These are various housing developements in Great Oakley. This one on the bottom is the view from Coombe Road. The others are nearby on Lyveden Way.

London Day Two!

What is inevitable when taking a family trip somewhere? Those of you who have participated in various of our family trips will surely come up with the correct answer: puking. It is also inevitable that at some point during our various family get-togethers, the conversation will eventually come around to all our previous hilarious stories on puking. “Hey, remember Siesta Key 2006? Who DIDN’T get sick? Remember the Isle of Shoals?” - followed by great hilarious laughter over the poor unfortunates who spent part of their vacation puking their guts out. Understand please, these are not necessarily hilarious at the time, (except for the filming of Bill over the side of the boat at Isle of Shoals) but only afterwards.

Friday night, we ordered Pizza Hut delivery, and during the meal, Abby mentioned that her tummy didn’t feel well. I was a little concerned, but not overly, and she ate up, even finishing off with some Oreos. We then sent the kids off to bed at their usual bedtimes so they could get enough rest for our early departure the next day. About an hour later, I heard crying from Abby’s room and when I went to investigate, I was in no way surprised by the pizza/oreo puke all over her and the bed. Poor Abby - she picked up a bug somewhere, and puked off and on for hours. Each time she would finish, Bill would hopefully say something like “I think her color’s better; that will be it” and I would shake my head and say “Nope” or he would say “Her eyes are looking better; her cheeks and forehead are the same temp now” and I would shake my head “Nope”.

Inside, I was groaning, knowing what kind of night was ahead and, of course, we had to get up early to go to the train. And of course our tickets were already purchased, so we couldn’t waste them. I was actually doubtful as to whether Abby could even go. We spent a weary night getting up with Abby each time she got sick; fortunately there was nothing left in her much so they became dry heaves (much less messy). At 5:45 am, I asked Abby how she felt and if she thought she could go to London, to which she replied that she felt fine and she really wanted to go to London. Every time she would finish puking, she would seem to feel just fine, so I believed she had a shot at getting through the day, so we prepared to go. I think her big motivation for wanting to go was knowing that we were going to Buckingham Palace - she did not want to miss that.

It was an early trek to the X1 bus stop. We had to catch the 7:00 am bus at Morrison’s. This was NOT my doing, but rather Damian’s, making us take such an early train to get to London so early!!!!! Our train was the 7:48, but there wasn’t another bus that would get us there before then, groan, moan.

As we left the house, I grabbed some plastic ziplock bags to use as puke bags - a very fortunate move! I banned Abby from eating anything or drinking anything other than sprite/ginger ale. Once we arrived at the Kettering train station, we went to Pumpkin coffee shop and got Abby a sprite, of which she was allowed to take 2 sips. She was able to keep that down - very encouraging!! The rest of us got chocolate chip croissants, mmmm!

(some ancient Egyptian stuff; Abby in front of Ramses II's fist)

On the train, Abby had one heaving episode, then laid her head down on her jacket and feel asleep for the entire trip. We arrived at St. Pancras with little event and headed down to the underground. One bright note: Abby’s sprained ankle was mostly better and she had no difficulty walking on it by this time! We ended our journey at Russell Square, where we met up with Damian. Bill had just enough time to zip across the street at our meeting point to Tesco Express to pick up some Krispy Creme doughnuts. Damian met us a few minutes later and off we went to the British Museum - this is the place that collects all the ancient stuff - Rosetta Stone, mummies, pieces of the Parthenon, and all other manner of stuff. We had about an hour total to go through a few of the exhibits; we hit ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, and some other ancient things like Assyria and Mesopotamia. What an incredible collection! Oh, and museums in London are free of admission, a really awesome thing!

(the Rosetta stone; the piece of the Parthenon; some coffins from Egypt)

We rapidly stopped in at Starbucks (across from the British Museum for future reference) to get our caffeine fix, then it was back on the tube to get to Buckingham Palace. Once there, we were told to go back to the Shop area to pick up our tickets (pre-purchased online), so Bill left the kids with me while he and Damian went back to the other end of the block to get them. Joseph started getting very upset - he had to use the toilet VERY badly and so I asked a Buckingham employee where the nearest one was. She had this long elaborate explanation of where to go (down to the light, then left down that street and at the pub, take a right) the last part of which I had to have her repeat. I was very frustrated by this because Bill had told me to wait for him there and I couldn’t just take a ten minute walk down the road and not be there. A minute later, a nearby lady police officer standing in one of the doorway areas of the palace had overheard and told me if I could wait 2 minutes, she would let Joseph "take a wee" behind the shed. She talked to a couple other people asking her questions and when they left, she motioned for Joseph to come in and she took him onto the palace grounds behind some shed or other. I can imagine she saw Joseph’s distress and my frustration and took pity on us. Joseph was back a minute later, a much happier guy!

They gave out audio guides inside the palace, after a thorough security inspection, and we chose the one geared towards kids. The kids immediately got into that and we had an incredible and very enjoyable tour through all the rooms. Photography was not allowed, and there were many employees around to make sure there were no illegal photos - we did get a nice booklet with pics though!!! The ballroom was set up for a state dinner - for 170 people. The sight was incredible, as were many other things inside.

(Abby on the terrace of Buckingham Palace)

Once our tour was done, Damian took us over past Trafalgar Square to one of his favorite restaurants, Texas Embassy. We had a great tex-mex dinner and drank huge amounts of iced tea served there. Soon after arrival there, Abby put her head on the table and fell fast asleep, so she had a nice nap to get her through the day. She had been doing pretty well overall, with very little puking. She had a few moments, especially down on the tube where she would feel sick, but sipping the sprite throughout the day kept her feeling pretty well. On the way to Texas Embassy, she asked for a motrin, and after taking that, she puked it up, but otherwise did OK. We simply kept the plastic ziplock in my pocket, and I would whip it out for her to hold over her mouth when she felt sick. This system worked very well.

After dinner (early dinner, late lunch), it was about 4:30 and we decided to go over to see St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were on the red central line; abruptly at Holbern, everyone was told to leave the train, it was terminating. We all got off, and the board was saying there was an incident between two stops nearby. Since Joseph was again in desperation, we decided to go up to the street instead of getting on another line. We made a pit stop at McD’s for the toilets and to strategize. We quickly determined that St. Paul’s wasn’t going to happen, as the red line was the only one that came near it. It was getting close to Damian’s train home so we decided to take the blue line, where he could go his way to Euston Station, and we could get off at Piccadilly Circus.

When we went back down to the tube, the announcements were then saying “due to a person under the train, the red line is closed between such and such stations” - picture this announcement in a polite British accent to get the right vibe.

In general, we have found that the tube trains can get REALLY packed, especially between big traffic areas. But they are almost always clean or relatively clean and there is not much pushing or rudeness.

We didn’t have a ton of time at Piccadilly Circus, but we did do some touring around to see the various shops and what was about. There was a big Gap store having a big sale : ). Then it was back to St. Pancras to catch our train to Kettering. The train home was fairly empty, and the only mistake I made was to allow Abby to have the water she desperately wanted - she promptly puked it all up a minute later; back to sprite for her!


It was an easy ride home and a nice walk back to the house where it was baths and bed for the kids and getting ready for morning church for us.

(Piccadilly Circus)